The present invention relates generally to a system and method for providing add-on services and/or secure communication for systems using a dialog based interactive protocol (e.g., Instant Messaging) and, more particularly, to a system and method that provides add-on services and/or facilitates authentication, authorization and/or secure communications of a user accessing a first computer system, separately from the authentication and security mechanism(s) provided by a second computer system using a dialog based interactive protocol system.
Several dialog based interactive protocols and systems have witnessed rising popularity in applications such as Instant Messaging (IM). Such protocols and systems typically include some mechanism for authentication of the users using the system, but typically lack a mechanism for securing the dialog between users.
For example, an America Online Corporation (AOL) Instant Messenger (AIM) session begins with a sign on process that uses a user's AOL screen name and a password encrypted using MD5. AIM messages are not, however, encrypted.
MSN Messenger user passwords are encrypted using a conventional MD5 hash algorithm. However, all messages other than the authentication sequence are in clear text.
Popular IM systems such as AOL, MSN, and Yahoo! Messenger are primarily designed for the consumer space where ease of use and minimal configuration are primary design goals. These design goals limit the amount of security that can be built into the IM protocol. For example, the use of public-key techniques for authentication is limited by the difficulty of reliably distributing and configuring a public-key certificate to each client.
For a variety of reasons including, for example, the need to ensure a sufficient level of security, scalability, and availability, each of the above-identified systems are closed. That is, the only access to them is via client software provided by the system operator.
Conventional instant messaging systems typically lack add-on services such as the ability to, for example, save/record a dialog onto a storage medium (e.g., into a database), scan incoming dialog messages for viruses, and/or apply, for example, natural language recognition techniques to monitor the dialog for inappropriate material.